Coming from a musical and artistic family, John was attracted to military service as an opportunity to become a professional musician. He joined the Staffordshire Regiment, and after arduous basic training, joined the military band. He focused on the cornet and the double bass and describes his development as a musician. He puts his success down to hard work; he wanted to become a professional musician in a military band and he would do whatever it took to achieve this. He was then given the opportunity to train at Kneller Hall, which he describes as ‘the mecca for army music’. He practised hard and won a prize for the most improved musician on double bass as well as best double bass musician for that year. Following graduation, he spent time in Northern Ireland, then Gibraltar. Eventually he became an instructor in the Prince of Wales division and from there back to Kneller Hall as a student Bandmaster. Having graduated, he became the first black bandmaster and went to the Cheshire Regiment and from there to Bosnia and the first Gulf War. He describes his time with the Cheshire Regiment, during which he received a commission before retiring in 2000.

An adventurous and extroverted young woman, Pauline joined the WRAC at seventeen years old after outperforming boys at her school in an army assault course. She knew in that moment that she would excel in a military career. Following her six weeks at Guildford she was posted to Blackdown to train as a supply clerk with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. She wanted to be a Physical Training Instructor but was advised to go into stores whilst placed in holding for an opening in physical trades. She remained in her first role as a store supplier before she was posted to Rheindahlen to supply local army bases. Being from Guyana Pauline describes the anxiety she felt in certain environments regarding racial prejudice but reflects fondly on her time in Rheindahlen due to her being surrounded by many women of different ethnicities. During her three years in Germany, as well as managing stores, she was also told to watch for Russian number plates or report suspicions of IRA or Cold War tensions. In this interview, Pauline recalls her upset at her forced leave due to her pregnancy and describes the many good soldiers the army lost due to this very reason. Like many other women, she felt she had more to give and these opportunities were taken away. Although Pauline speaks passionately about her time with the WRAC, her journey also highlights the issues with the treatment of women in the army.

In this interview Judy recalls joining the WRAC as a way to begin her career and move out of her family home. Judy completed her initial basic training at Lingfield, which was the predecessor of Guildford, before she was posted to Worthy Down to specialise as a pay clerk in the Royal Army Pay Corps. Reflecting on her training, Judy remembers being amazed at how quickly she transformed from a young girl into an adult woman. She also describes the experience of working with fast-changing technology, and how later in her life she realised how instrumental her work in data processing became with the arrival of the first computerised consensus. Later, Judy was posted to Aden and remembers the excitement of flying over the pyramids. Here she was taken to the Singapore lines where she worked with the binary code. When asked to reflect on the WRAC, Judy felt frustrated by the lack of options made available to women at the time but also extremely proud of the work she had done.